Hyundai also promoted the arrival of its next gen fuel cell vehicle (set for a 2018 release)

Hyundai has just announced a dramatic shift in its upcoming product strategy.

Hyundai Genesis

The automaker now says it will focus heavily on electric cars, with plans to launch a premium, long-range Tesla-fighter within the next few years.

The long-range BEV will be sold under the Genesis brand. Hyundai is claiming a range of 310 miles per charge. The vehicle will launch after 2021.

Reuters reports:

“The South Korean automaker is planning to launch an electric sedan under its high-end Genesis brand in 2021 with a range of 500 km (310 miles) per charge. It will also introduce an electric version of its Kona small sport utility vehicle (SUV) with a range of 390 km in the first half of next year.”

Like Toyota, Hyundai now appears to be backing away from hydrogen plans and shifting to electric. However, both automakers are behind the competition now and are racing to play catch up.

With that said, Hyundai is still firmly promoting the arrival of its next FCEV at the same time, by showing off its concept next generation fuel cell vehicle (see above photo) “well ahead of the hydrogen-powered SUV’s official launch early next year” from Seoul, South Korea. It is not expected to be a high volume offering.

Hyundai executive Vice President Lee Kwang-guk made the shift to electric clear with this statement:

Hyundai now say it will have 8 plug-in vehicles and 2 fuel-cell vehicles on the market by 2020. That’s a dramatic change from the automaker’s 2014 announcement, which stated 22 new-energy vehicles would be sold by the South Korean brand in 2020, of which only 2 were to be of the plug-in variety.

Along with the long-range premium electric car, Hyundai confirmed earlier reports that it’s building its own dedicated electric car platform as the basis for multiple longer range BEVs.

Electric car roadmap portion of press release below:

New eco-vehicle development roadmap

The new model will spearhead Hyundai Motor’s plans to accelerate development of low emission vehicles, in line with Hyundai Motor Group’s renewed goal of introducing 31 eco-friendly models (Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors combined) to global markets by 2020. This new development roadmap also represents the next step for Hyundai Motor and its affiliate toward realizing the ultimate ambition of creating a cleaner environment through eco-friendly vehicles.

Hyundai Motor plans to take a multi-pronged approach to its eco-vehicle program. The company is committed to a future vehicle line-up comprising a variety of powertrain options – electric, hybrid and fuel cell – to suit customers’ varied lifestyles.

Spurred on by greater global demand for fuel-efficient, eco-friendly vehicles, the roadmap sets out the brand’s goal of leading the global popularization of hybrid vehicles, expanding its lineup to SUVs and large vehicles. Another part of the plan is the development of 4WD and FR (Front Engine Rear Wheel Drive) variants, building on its proprietary Transmission-Mounted Electrical Device (TMED) system, which was developed in 2011.

While Hyundai Motor continues to develop its leadership of the electric vehicle market with its current IONIQ model, the company also aims to establish a lineup ranging from small EVs to large and luxurious Genesis-brand models. Hyundai Motor’s electric vehicle development will take place in multiple phases:

 · Launch of EV version of the Kona compact SUV, with range of 390km in first half of 2018  · Launch of Genesis EV model in 2021  · Launch of long-range EV, with 500km range after 2021

Furthermore, Hyundai Motor will develop its first dedicated architecture for pure electric vehicles, which will allow the company to produce multiple models with longer driving ranges.

Hyundai Motor will also strengthen its global leadership in hydrogen fuel cell technology. This will center on enhancing research and development efforts to boost FCEV performance and durability, while also making the technology smaller and cheaper so that it can be applied to smaller sedans. As part of these efforts, Hyundai Motor will unveil a new hydrogen-powered bus in the fourth quarter of this year.

I have an idea.
I would like to build a network of 60-100 fast chargers all over California, because right now, there are routes that are un-driveable for EV’s due to lack of fast charging infrastructure.

It would be 50kW dual-standard fast charge stations along major highways, and each station would have 4 stalls. Which would make it better than current CHAdeMO/CCS infrastructure where there is only 1 or 2 stalls per station.

And there would probably be 24kW ones thrown in as well, upwards of 200 of them. The reason for the 24kW ones, is Japan, 24kW chargers to them are the same as 6.6kW level 2 EVSE’s to US, they are everywhere. If we had even a quarter of the charger density that Japan had, EV adoption would skyrocket.

“Underscoring Hyundai’s electric shift, those plans include eight battery-powered and two fuel-cell vehicles – a contrast to its 2014 announcement for 22 models, of which only two were slated to be battery-powered.”

8 is a lot. And this competition in all price categories from all large car makers over the coming years is what Tesla – and Tesla fanboys – underestimate(d).

Good for EV customers, bad for profits and margins. Very intense competition ahead in tje EV space in 2018-2025.

The problem will be for the CCS network to accommodate so many varying sizes of batteries… the upcoming VW sponsored CCS network won’t be enough. They have to build them at under 90 miles of distance between them, increasing their costs and plugs dramatically as compared to the Tesla Supercharger network. Since they are only planning to spend $190 million through mid 2019 for 240 sites on the high speed highway network, they will be very far behind Tesla’s Supercharger network.

VW CCS L3 DCFC in the US in mid 2019:
240 sites
average 5 plugs per site
average 66 miles apart
1,200 plugs

Tesla Supercharger US network, mid 2017:
384 sites
average 6.7 plugs per site
average 120 miles apart
2,600 plugs

To be equivalent, the CCS network would have to be double the number of sites. Plus, many of the upcoming EVSE’s will be dual standard and Tesla owners can charge there too.

CCS biggest problem is not the range. It’s that companies offering charging are running on shoestring budget, and they do stupid things for short term profit that lead to awful user experience. Current fiasco with Bolt driving for Maven taking up all the chargers in San Diego is one example, another being free charging Leaf and i3 clogging up the chargers.

I predict that CCS/Chademo will be dead in few years, because the business case just doesn’t make sense. They literally have to destroy user experience to make money, and that can’t last (eg. Blink).

Tesla can do better since their main line of business is selling cars. To sell more cars, they’d need to enhance user experience rather than look for short term profit.

To be honest, the business case for the charger networks is probably weak. This is one of those situations where it actually might make more sense for the government to foot the bill. It’s basic infrastructure, similar to roads (yeah, we have toll roads too, but toll roads largely suck as a visit to Florida can attest).

Basically California in conjunction with the utilities, like SDG&E would just put the chargers in (the utilities would subcontract out the install, but would cooperate with it since they’re involved). To recover some of the costs a surcharge of $100 or something could be placed on all new car purchases (not just EVs).

Another alternative might be to just pay Tesla to install more non-Tesla specific charges at their locations.

The current situation with a dozen different charging networks, and limited availability and excessive prices because they’re trying to make money, just sucks. This just isn’t a situation where the free market works well, IMO.

Oh, I see you were out of the warranty period. To be fair, while this sucks, after getting over 130,000 miles in a car, having a $7000 repair is not that terrible. That $7000 could have possibly kept the vehicle on the road for another 100k miles, and it would have been much cheaper than buying an entirely new car.

While I can understand your frustration with the experience, I’m not actually convinced what happened to you was actually that bad. I had to put at least $4000 into replacing batteries on the Honda Insight I owned, and got many fewer miles out of it (don’t drive that much). You got a lot of miles out of that car. Personally, in that position I’d probably have just paid for the repair.

I was just reading an article yesterday and now I’ve blanked out where or which city or state it was but the utility wanted to install hundreds of charging stations that were very low cost as they considered it part of basic infrastructure like you said. It wasn’t California either. But they were stopped by a state court because one of the EV networks sued them for being anti-competitive or some such weird thing. It was somewhere really interesting that had not very much infrastructure. Anyone know the case I’m thinking?

My 2012 volt died three months ago,arggh. Yea I’m done with GM. Tesla 3 on order. Till then I got a Ioniq hybrid (not electric) but I LOVE IT. Good job Hyundai. Avg 62.2 mpg combined for me! Got 82mpg driving four hours through the fl Keys at avg 45mph. wow. Just drove it 3,600 from FL to OH to Chicago to Nola and back home to Naples FL. Avg 56mpg at 85 mph. lol my volt would get 32mpg on long trips. After 136,000m in volt my avg mpg was just under 80. So ioniq not far off from gas savings vs volt. Hyundai has been great and I even love that it will switch to full electric drive even at 80mph to use up stored battery from recharge. kinda cool My prius never did that. I predict Hyundai will kick GM, Tesla, Nissan butt by 2020. Very satisfied Hyundai customer and frankly very surprised. Everyone I know that owns Hyundai LOVES it. I expect great things from them on the electric front. Oh I would have bought electric or plug in ioiq but not available in FL. Go get em Hyundai!

It stopped working completely and had to be towed to Chevy. they said it would be a $7,000 repair bc ” a sensor to the batteries was malfunctioning and needed replacing” I said You gotta be f%%$$#@ kidding me. They said oh well we will give $1000 in trade in for it a new Chevy. I said screw you chevy. This car had been in the shop at least 15 times in 5 years. It was a total lemon. I went to Hyundai and got $4,000 trade in for Ioniq which I also got $2,000 off msrp. Out the door for $23K. 0% interest. It was a good deal. btw Chevy told me to drive in mountain to solve a problem they could never fix which created this problem w the sensor bc it only happened in mountain mode. but that day it would even start up, usually I just would restart after a malfunction and it was fine. that day it died for good. so funny but a guy in Little Rock fb msg me that he bought my car. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he got screwed w a lemon. Oh He just msg me that he paid $7,200 and they never fixed the problem and it runs intermittently for him in mountain mode. omg what scums at chevy. i should have sued them.

So… what… Hyundai ripped the guy off then? Or did he buy it at auction?

And you didn’t bother to tell him he had a hopeless lemon? Even after he contacted you about the car? I would have wanted to know as soon as possible. I would be upset at Chevy, Hyundai and at you if I were him. Sounds like he got screwed by everyone.

I think maybe the lesson you should have learned, rather than blaming Chevy, was to lease with new technology like this. That way you can be sure all the bugs are worked out. Had you leased, that Volt would have been turned in three years ago.

I’m surprised the battery fix wasn’t covered by warranty. To be honest, had I been in your situation I’d have been much more aggressive about trying to get GM to pay for the repair. I’d have tried to contact corporate and threatened to make a big scene if they didn’t do something.

Honestly, I might have gone as far as threatening a lawsuit (not sure I’d have followed through, but just as a threat to get attention).

For all the promised Ioniq-EV, only 13 units are available all over USA. And Hyundai says that they underestimated demand and they are increasing production by 2018 by 50%. This type of shortage will damage the brand itself.

Hmm, they may do the same with Kona.

And the twin plugins of Sonata/Optima are priced between $34K – $35K are very expensive.

All this big news about launching 6 models in 2020, 8 models in 2022 and so on is because of the Tesla Effect. Automakers don’t want anyone to book a Model 3.